Saving Grace | ✓

Nothing Toxic Comes From Genuine Love

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 ★ ★ ★

Leo knew, Leo knew everything and for the first time in a long time a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I'd explained how it began with Luke controlling each part of my life, how he had made me walk away from my closest friends and how he had made me have constant arguments with my family to space myself away from them too.

In the end, all I ever had was Luke and he was the only person I could depend on and he loved that. He loved how lonely I was, he adored that sweet naive Grace was innocent enough to believe that him abusing me was all my fault. It never made sense to me how he hadn't made me fall out with Liam, but maybe that was because he knew that I never would've had the balls to tell Liam what Luke had been doing, because Liam would've ended Luke there and then also ending his own future. Luke knew how much I cared for my friends, so maybe he knew I'd never want them to ruin their future because of me meaning his secret would always remain just that.

It all began with silly things like Luke going through my phone, getting worried if I'd spoken to another boy and then in the end he would guilt trick me into deleting their number and never speaking to them again, just to prove how much I cared for him. After I had secluded myself to just Hunter, Liam, Olivia and Aby that was when he began to control what I wore. I couldn't wear certain dresses because boys would think I was single, or I couldn't wear makeup because it made me look like a slapper. In the end I opted to live in jeans and plain boring t-shirts just to keep him happy, and makeup was always a no go.

I guess the first day I realised something was wrong was the day I went out for coffee with Liv at a cafe near to my house. I had already told him the day before that we were planning a girl day, he wasn't happy but I reassured him that it would just be us girls – that there was nothing to worry about. Within the space of an hour I had received 62 phone calls, and over 40 texts demanding where I was and who I was with. If that wasn't enough he wanted photographic evidence to prove that I really was at the Cafe and who I was there with. I sent him that, and he seemed to be fine. 

Later that evening I went home, and to my dismay he was sat at the dining table with my parents having dinner. It was a huge shock, considering Luke had never been round my house without me there before. My parents greeted me, and laid me a plate of food on the table and I began to dig in. But next to Luke I felt uneasy, there was a tension between us I couldn't quite understand and it was one that I had grown to become very uncomfortable with.

After dinner finished, Luke and I said thank you to my mum for preparing the meal and we went upstairs to my bedroom to watch a movie and my mother and father went off out on an evening stroll. But it wasn't long before he flipped out, and to this day the argument stays clear as day in my memory.

"Why didn't you answer any of my phone calls today?" Luke seethed, both fists clenched tightly by his side. As his eyes turned an abnormal colour, I knew that this wasn't going to end well.

I couldn't take my eyes off his, curious as to why they'd changed from his usual sweet blue. "I'm sorry, I was with Liv and I would have been rude to have been on the phone the whole time to you."

"Well Liv's a bitch. I'm your boyfriend, you should answer all my calls when I contact you! I thought you were with another boy." He replied, sitting down on the fluffy pink stool placed in front of my vanity table.

My face sank, he was just worried about losing me. "I'd never go to another boy, I love you Luke and only you."

"You promise?" Luke replied, before placing his face in his hands delicately.